Let the Sweatshop Reform Law Work
+Garment workers have a right to minimum wages and overtime. Don't allow
big business to circumvent that.
By LORA JO FOO, JULIE A. SU
Los Angeles Times, April 7, 2000

Last year, Gov. Gray Davis signed into law Assembly Bill 633, the sweatshop
reform bill. Today, big-name retailers, hoping to have Davis safely tucked
in their multimillion-dollar pockets, are pressuring him to exempt them
from its requirements.

This law gives protection to the state's 160,000 garment workers, the
majority of whom are immigrant women toiling 60 to 70 hours a week in
sweatshops for less than minimum wages and no overtime pay. The law makes
explicit the garment manufacturers' and retailers' legal responsibility to
ensure that the workers who sew their clothes at contractors' facilities
receive at least minimum wage and overtime pay. This law, which
acknowledges the economic reality of manufacturers' and retailers' control
over sweatshops, provides the state's garment workers with a new legal tool
to collect an estimated $73 million in unpaid wages each year.

Melanie Orhant <<morhant@igc.org>>
__________________
Stop-traffic is facilitated, international electronic list
funded by the Women's Reproductive Health Initiative
of the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health (PATH)
dealing with human rights abuses associated with trafficking
in persons, with an emphasis on public health and trafficking
in persons for forced labor, including forced prostitution,
sweatshop labor, domestic service and some coercive mail
order bride arrangements.
_________________
Stop-Traffic archive:
http://www.friends-partners.org/partners/stop-traffic/1999/
_________________

To subscribe, please send an email to
listproc@friends-partners.org
Leave the subject blank. In the body of your message, write:
subscribe STOP-TRAFFIC <Your Name>
Inserting your real name (without brackets <>) after STOP-TRAFFIC.
___________________
To unsubscribe, send email to
listproc@friends-partners.org
Leave the subject blank. In the body of your message write:
unsubscribe STOP-TRAFFIC
_________________________
To send a message to STOP-TRAFFIC, email:
stop-traffic@friends-partners.org
_________________________
To receive stop-traffic in digest form, please send an email to
listproc@friends-partners.org
Leave the subject blank. In the body of your message, write:
set STOP-TRAFFIC mail digest
ListProcessor receives your request, changes the mail status to
digest and returns a message to you about the change.